Paris / Singapore — 30 April 2026 — Qubit Pharmaceuticals today announced a strategic research collaboration with the Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT) in Singapore to develop and use novel quantum algorithms for molecular discovery.
The two-year collaboration combines Qubit Pharmaceuticals’ expertise in quantum chemistry and sampling techniques with CQT’s deep capabilities in quantum computing, circuit design, and experimental implementation. The goal is to bring advanced quantum chemistry methods closer to real-world drug discovery applications.
Together, the teams are designing and testing algorithms for quantum chemistry, including variational quantum eigensolvers, quantum phase estimation, and quantum Markov Chain Monte Carlo (qMCMC) sampling. These algorithms target key computational bottlenecks in drug discovery, such as improving the accuracy of quantum chemistry calculations for better drug property predictions and enabling more efficient sampling techniques for molecular simulations.
“Quantum algorithms for chemistry have been studied for decades, but real implementations remain rare,” said Robert Marino, CEO of Qubit Pharmaceuticals. “By working with CQT and leveraging access to state-of-the-art quantum hardware, we aim to transition these algorithms from theoretical constructs into real computational tools for molecular discovery.”
“Recent progress in quantum hardware is exciting. We want to match this pace in developing quantum algorithms. We are glad to partner with domain experts like Qubit Pharmaceuticals to show what quantum computers can do for problems people care about,” said José Ignacio Latorre, Director of CQT and Provost’s Chair Professor at the National University of Singapore’s Department of Physics.
The researchers aim to explore whether quantum algorithms can approach the highest level of accuracy in molecular simulations while potentially delivering quadratic or even exponential computational advantages compared to classical approaches. They will validate their algorithms on quantum simulators before deploying to real quantum hardware.
The project is supported by Singapore’s National Quantum Computing Hub, through which CQT researchers have access to run experiments on Quantinuum’s quantum systems, including the H2 and Helios systems.
Marino and Baptiste Claudon presented first results from these experiments on 23 April at a Quantum Industry Day in Singapore organised by Quantinuum and Singapore’s National Quantum Office for some 250 invited participants.
The team has implemented the qMCMC algorithm, testing several different encodings. This is the first time this type of algorithm has been deployed to quantum hardware, and the team has published details to the physics preprint server arXiv (https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.08395).
The collaboration is led by Jean-Philip Piquemal at Qubit Pharmaceuticals and Sergi Ramos-Calderer at CQT, with an initial team of four researchers across both organisations. Additional researchers are expected to join as the programme expands.
"Through our collaboration with Quantinuum, we have the opportunity to test quantum algorithms on some of the best gate-based quantum machines available today,” said Ramos-Calderer. “Algorithm design must move hand-in-hand with hardware improvements, and this work is a meaningful step in this direction."
“Drug discovery is fundamentally a molecular simulation challenge. If we can model chemistry with greater fidelity and efficiency, we can make better decisions earlier in the pipeline,” said Piquemal, Chief Scientific Officer / Co-founder, Qubit Pharmaceuticals. “This collaboration allows us to rigorously test whether quantum algorithms can move from scientific promise to practical utility on problems that matter.”
“We are interested in more than benchmark circuits or abstract demonstrations,” said Claudon, Quantum Physics Engineer, Qubit Pharmaceuticals. “Our focus is implementing algorithms that can address real computational bottlenecks in chemistry. Working with CQT and Quantinuum hardware gives us an opportunity to evaluate these methods under realistic conditions and learn what is required to make them useful for molecular discovery.”
Over the longer term, the team aims to generate real molecular simulation data produced directly by quantum algorithms and integrate these capabilities into future drug discovery workflows.
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Media contacts
Chris Spillane
Qubit Pharmaceuticals
Jenny Hogan
Centre for Quantum Technologies
About Qubit Pharmaceuticals
Qubit Pharmaceuticals was founded in 2020 with the vision of co-developing, in partnership with pharmaceutical and biotech companies, safer and more effective new drugs. The company emerged from the academic research of five internationally renowned scientists: Louis Lagardère (Sorbonne University and CNRS), Matthieu Montes (CNAM), Jean-Philip Piquemal (Sorbonne University and CNRS), Jay Ponder (Washington University in St. Louis), and Pengyu Ren (University of Texas at Austin). Qubit Pharmaceuticals leverages its Atlas platform to discover new drugs through molecular simulation and modeling, accelerated by hybrid HPC and quantum computing.
The company’s multidisciplinary team, led by CEO Robert Marino, and its founders are based in France at the Paris Santé Cochin incubator, and in Boston, USA.
Qubit Pharmaceuticals was named a "2024 Technology Pioneer" by the World Economic Forum and has forged high-level partnerships, including with Institut Curie, Sorbonne University, and the Institute of Pharmacology at the University of Sherbrooke (Canada).
For further information, including the drug discovery portfolio, visit www.qubit-pharmaceuticals.com
About the Centre for Quantum Technologies, Singapore
The Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT) is Singapore’s flagship national research centre in quantum technologies. Supported under Singapore’s National Quantum Strategy, the centre has nodes at partner institutions and coordinates research talent across the country. CQT’s partner institutions are universities – the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and the Singapore University of Technology and Design – and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research.
CQT brings together physicists, computer scientists and engineers to do basic research on quantum physics and to build devices based on quantum phenomena. Experts in this new discipline of quantum technologies are applying their discoveries in computing, communications, and sensing.
For more information, please visit www.cqt.sg
About National University of Singapore (NUS)
The National University of Singapore (NUS) is Singapore’s flagship university, which offers a global approach to education, research and entrepreneurship, with a focus on Asian perspectives and expertise. We have 15 colleges, faculties and schools across three campuses in Singapore, with more than 40,000 students from 100 countries enriching our vibrant and diverse campus community. We have also established more than 20 NUS Overseas Colleges entrepreneurial hubs around the world.
Our multidisciplinary and real-world approach to education, research and entrepreneurship enables us to work closely with industry, governments and academia to address crucial and complex issues relevant to Asia and the world. Researchers in our faculties, research centres of excellence, corporate labs and more than 30 university-level research institutes focus on themes that include energy; environmental and urban sustainability; treatment and prevention of diseases; active ageing; advanced materials; risk management and resilience of financial systems; Asian studies; and Smart Nation capabilities such as artificial intelligence, data science, operations research and cybersecurity.
For more information on NUS, please visit nus.edu.sg.
About Quantinuum
Quantinuum is a leading quantum computing company offering a full-stack platform designed to make quantum computing deployable in real-world environments. The company has commercially deployed multiple generations of quantum systems built on the well-established QCCD architecture, which it has implemented with novel designs and capabilities to achieve the industry’s highest accuracy levels based on average two-qubit gate fidelity.* Quantinuum has active engagements with market leaders across pharmaceuticals, material science, financial services, and government and industrial markets. The company has a global workforce of approximately 700 employees, including top scientists and researchers. Over 70% of its technology team hold PhDs. Quantinuum’s headquarters is in Broomfield, Colorado, with additional facilities across the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and Singapore.
For more information, please visit www.quantinuum.com .
* As of December 31, 2025.
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